On the silver screen, psychological mystery thrillers – kinky or otherwise, whether major studio or independent – have always been popular, and the early-to-mid 1990s produced more than their fair share. For example, recognize the following: "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Basic Instinct" (1992), "Jennifer Eight" (1992), "Sliver" (1993), "Color of Night" (1994), "Knight Moves" (1995), and "Copycat" (1995). In "Whispers in the Dark," Ann Hecker (Annabella Sciorra), who is ending her rocky relationship with her boyfriend Paul, practices as a psychiatrist in Manhattan. She is told by one of her patients, Eve Abergray (Deborah Unger) – attractive but sexually perverted – about her sexual sado-masochistic/bondage practices with her boyfriend. Ann seems to take it all in with high interest. As Ann seems turned on by her own dreams of sexual bondage, she consults with her former therapist (when she attended college) and friend Leo Green (Alan Alda). Another of Ann's patients, Latino Johnny Castillo (John Leguizano), a sadist, likes to paint sexual fantasies (as opposed to acting them out). Both Eve and Johnny are unbalanced, to say the least, and Ann does not seem to have solutions. On one of the office visits, Eve removes most of her clothing and masturbates in front of Ann. The bewildered psychiatrist can only ogle. Later on Johnny C. breaks into Ann's apartment and hogties her for a short time before freeing her and jumping outside her window ledge. Talk about being just a bit troubled!One day Ann sees airplane pilot Doug McDowell (Jamey Sheridan) on the elevator in her office building. Before long the two are dating, but Doug has some dark secrets. One of these is that he is Eve's sexual partner in bondage! When Eve discovers that Ann is dating Doug, she becomes intractable; she steals some files and tapes from Ann's office that she plans to use against the psychiatrist. When Eve is found dead, hanging nude, Ann's suspicions focus on Doug. Enter Detective Larry Morgenstern (Anthony LaPaglia). Morgenstern tries to get Ann to release her office files to him, but Ann will not agree. Nevertheless, Morgenstern is insistent and dogs Ann at every turn. He tells her that he has found the tapes that Eve had stolen. "Those tapes are my property. I'd like them back," she demands. "No! Material evidence in a murder investigation," sneers Morgenstern. After Johnny C. falls from the window ledge to his death, Ann seeks solace with Leo Green, as she did not realize that the sadistically deranged artist had previously tortured many women. "Oh come on," retorts Leo, "a bright psychopath can fool anybody." What! Later this line will make some sense. When Doug takes Ann to visit his mother, Mrs. McDowell, she tells Ann that Doug was once married. His wife Jenny hanged herself after sustaining severe depression. Doug admits that there was violence in the marriage: Jenny attacked him because of his affair with another. Shocked, Ann confides this information to Leo, who in turns relays it to Morgenstern. Ann is disappointed in Leo's action. Before that, Morgenstern had told Ann that as Johnny C.'s alibi checked out with regard to Eve's death, the unhinged artist could not have killed her. Right after Morgenstern is found dead in the airplane hangar of McDowell Aviation. Suspicions continue to focus on Doug. Meanwhile Ann has returned to get solace from Leo and his wife at the Nantucket seashore. There is no reason to expose the last one-fifth of the feature and major twist to the movie. But it can be stated confidentially that there is one turn too many.The main charters here – psychiatrists, patients, and police – are not particularly likable. But the movie features excellent performances by Alan Alda, Anthony La Paglia (the Italian Aussie), and Deborah Unger; Annabella Sciorra is good enough. Jamey Sheridan is hardly appealing: note his large head. Actually his character is quite dubious. The Manhattan camera-shooting is not really used to any specific advantage; there is an aerial shot of Nantucket. Although panned by critics, the feature is still nicely filmed and is attention-getting despite some script weaknesses and a ludicrous double-twisted ending. Just watch it for its entertainment value.

If only the role Annabella Sciorra played hadn't been given the profession of a shrink, then her role in this awful, quasi-erotic thriller in the vein of BASIC INSTINCT would have had a more engaging approach. But shrinks getting themselves into a lot of unwanted heat and possibly even death by some unpleasant way was the raison d'etre of many "thrillers" capitalizing on the success of Paul Verhoeven's smash hit between 1992 and 1994, respectively, and this was one of the worst of the bunch.The premise isn't bad. Actually, it's a distant relative in its elements to the premise of Anais Nin's "Spy in the House of Love" and in Marguerite Duras' "Moderato Cantabile", just with an update to bring a strong sensibility to the erotic mores of the times and the necessary potboiler plot that looked like something Joan Crawford could do in her sleep in the mid-Fifties when her career consisted of women falling for the wrong guy and being in mortal harm from their ulterior motives and unpredictable mood swings.The problem herein lies not in the story itself but in the mode of execution. The introduction of the thriller mode in which a troubled woman is killed had been done with better success. If not, all one needs to do is take a peek at DRESSED TO KILL where Angie Dickinson's character, in looking for sex with a stranger, found quite a wallop but of something nastier in the place she least expected, and from the last person on Earth whom she would have guessed capable of such a thing.The key phrase is "the last person on Earth ... capable of such a thing." It's a problem for thrillers because it sets up the viewer for a "surprise" which may or may not work. I don't like surprises, when it involves a character revealing him or herself to be the baddie all along and doing their own impression of a Jack-in-the-box, complete with a "Gotcha!" moment. It's too easy, it's the oldest trick in the book ("Maybe... the butler did it," quoted a certain butler from Robert Altman's nearly flawless 2001 movie GOSFORD PARK, but with a wink in the eye), and one that even a movie as exploitative as BASIC INSTINCT was knowingly playing on as bait with its tongue firmly planted in cheek.No. I don't care for those surprises. It's what made me deny ever going to M. Night Shyamalan movies once it became patent and not actual cleverness in action. I want something more textured, a person's reaction to another person's dysfunction which may or may not have a conclusion, and even if there is the subject matter of a killer on the loose... why not play it up for the hell of it and perhaps let the story surprise the creator, and ultimately, the viewer? It's too bad. WHISPERS IN THE BARK, a title closest to romantic-suspense of the Avon category, falls apart at the seams and reveals it was a poorly built structure all along. Not a single performance can save this movie, and what the hell is Jill Clayburgh doing here of all places? Where did her career go, for crying out loud?

This movie is proof that the ending of a movie can ruin the rest. Not that the rest was great, but the ending of this movie was completely ridiculous. The story seemed to be going somewhere mildly interesting, but the filmmakers decided that they should risk it all to make sure no one could figure out the ending. It seemed as though the writers were not pleased with the direction of the story with about a third of the movie left and threw the curve-ball of Alan Alda. The scene at the dinner table, where he comically hits his wife in the face with a bottle was received with a chorus of laughter in the theater. It was all made better by the shot of Alan getting his skull punctured. One of the worst movies I have ever seen.

This is actually a rather dull film for the most part---the red herrings are preposterous and uninteresting and the sexuality never goes beyond cheap titillation. It hints at more interesting things and nine times out of ten it punks out at exploring those intriguing themes, going for the cheap thrill every opportunity. And it's not that thrilling, period.But the ending is amazing. It kept me laughing for weeks after I'd seen the movie. So ludicrous and out of nowhere it comes off like a bad joke, or incomparable idiocy. It still makes me giggle every time I think about it. I can barely type right now.See this movie for the last thirty minutes. It's worth it.